mission
I remember reading "Getting West Point Back on Mission" in Mar-Apr 06 Military Review that suggested USMA was failing at its mission to create career officers. It was a response to the high attrittion rate coming out of recent USMA classes.
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/Military...Richardson.pdf
The author argues that the school's mission is to create career officers, and if it is not doing that, meaning most of the class gets out at 5+/- years, reassess who it is recruiting and re-evaluate its training. He worries that if it is not accomplishing its goal, it is not cost effective, and could theoretically close. That's a pretty honest assessment, which takes the emotion, history, and tradition out of it. His main concern was the mission change to a "lifetime of service to the nation" which made it ok to serve outside the Army. He is happy the mission has returned to "lifetime of service to the Army." He also argues that recruiting and daily training need to indicate that the point of the school is a career in the Army, not free college for a couple years.
I see value to USMA, but like any other school, it produces good officers and poor officers. Ask a grad, he'll be the first to tell you about some of the characters that should not have made it. My OBC class was 2/3rd West Point, and after the first 2 weeks, the mafia broke up because many realized they did not like each other. In my first unit, there were 3-5 grads. When I left 4 years later, there was only 1 or 2. My current CCC class only has a handful, probably near 10%, of grads. The Army is growing its officer corps, largely through expanded ROTC and OCS. Calling for an evaluation or assessment of the academies is valid. Calling for their outright closure to save money, maybe not as valid. I stayed in a USMA barracks during a summer lacrosse camp during middle school, and did not find it luxorious, but maybe they could cut back on the fun elsewhere (I've never heard a grad refer to fun while they were there, though).
Disclosure: I was a 2 year ROTC scholarship cadet, and am finishing my 5th year of service. I will keeping searching for the article. If anyone else is familiar with it, please let me know.
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